Happy Monday, and a Little Spilling of the Beans:

HI, well its Monday, and a good one too!  This is the start of the week I get to show and share with you everything I have been up to the past few months! Cue the angels!  I just want to say I have grown and learned so much in the past few months, taking on this new adventure, I have learned to design, program, and launch an entire website from scratch.  Which, I have to say I will not be doing again anytime soon!  Hah! Man it is hard!  I understand why those web programmers get paid what they do.  Lets just say IT AIN"T EASY!

I have also become pretty darn proficient in Photoshop and can now get the visions in my head on to paper!!  I still need the help of my wonder woman graphic designer Sarah a lot of the time but, I am getting better and better all the time!  

I have grown and enhanced my paperlife these last few month by leaps and bounds.  My creative bone is in overdrive.  I know I mentioned my new proficiency in PS but, I do need to say, rest assured, I am not becoming digi.  The paperlife's new basis will be PRINTABLES or as some of you know it to be HYBRID!!!!!

This came about for many reasons:

1.) After many trips to industry shows, I have realized there is only a small fraction of styles and products that actually make it to you the consumer due to cost, risk, space, etc.  From a designers mind, to CHA, to the stores.  Every step along the way is a fight to make the cut and because of that, you the scrapbooker miss out on so many amazing products.  With printables this is not the case.  It goes straight from the designers' minds to your printer!  You decide what makes the cut.

2.) With Paperlife Printables you are the CHA buyer!  What you will see showcased and updated at least monthly here is your version of CHA online with us, and you pick what comes into your paperlife, not the buyer from a big store who may or may not even scrapbook themselves, or may or may not share your same crafting style.

3.) I scrap, a lot, and what I and many of my Papergirl friends will be creating for you will be just that, designs and products created by the crafter for the crafter.

4.) and this was a personal experience that put me over the top to realize the need for product availability via printables, our beloved LSS are closing.  It makes me so sad, the store I have designed for and has been my home store for my entire creative journey closed its doors this spring and I just knew.  It is sad but the middle man, in many parts of this country and others is just not making it, no matter how much money we spend with them, and man I spent a lot!  There will always be products that I, and you will have to either order or hopefully one day an LSS will return within my driving area, like adhesive and such.  But, I could not get what I knew in paper format was available to me anymore, and I HATE paying shipping for a piece of a certain paper I need at the online store and worse than that the wait for it to come.  I knew there had to be a better way for things like that.  And I hope paperlife printables is just that, your store, and printing factory, in one, in your home via your computer and printer!

5.) this is a lot like number four but, many of you know I spend lots of time on our family farm, 2 hours away and have many scrapbooking friends down there.  The situation there is, I cannot even get to a big box store, with product, in under an hour drive, let alone a scrapbook store, that is just not a reality down there.  I have shared this situation with others and am amazed at how many of you have the exact same predicament in your location.  With the price of gas, the value of my scrap time, and the need to create wherever I am, Paperlife Printables came about for me, them, and all of you in the same situations.

6.) This is the disclaimer, I love the industry, and as I said before, there is only so much you can get in a printable format, but, what you can get is the meat and potatoes of your creative endeavors, the paper and added elements.  So,that is what we are going to offer you here (along with some other things I am going to wait to share a little later in the week hee hee!)  Instant access to "boutique" style paperlines right at home, in the moment, for another alternative and option to what you can find now.

Ok that is what I am giving you for today! 

what?

You want more than that?

Ok, Ok you twisted my arm!  Here is the very first of 3 collection lines we will debut for you on Friday:

meet Country Estate:

Well, these are the papers in the collection, there is more but, you will have to wait till Friday for all of that.  The inspiration for Country Estate, was my very own childhood and a reflection of what growing up during the summertime in the countryside looked and felt like for me.  That, and all of the adorable country floral prints I was seeing in the store everywhere this spring. Oh and Navy!  I love me some Navy right now!

Here is a layout I did with it, of Tucker:

and here is another by my friend, designer, Jen Haggerty:

I love the uniqueness of the line and the COLORS!! Yes colors, I am in love with color again, but in rich and sophisticated pallets, I have always felt like that look was missing in the industry, and like I said Paperlife Printables is meant to add to, and enhance what is available in the industry right now.

My hope is that The Paperlife will always have its own style, but we will constantly re-invent ourselves to fit what is missing.  Always having touches and elements of what on trend, needed, and unexpected.  Something NEW and FRESH!

Ok so comments, what do you think?

We want to hear from you on that because you will be the driving force behind what we design, and in more ways than you can ever imagine in the near future {wink}!

Also, concerns, this is new, there will be growing pains, fears, issues, and we embrace that and want to grow and perfect ourselves with them, so share.  Hey, this is all new to us too!  And we need you and your input!

And who can forget questions and/or suggestions.  Hit us with them.  We would love to answer anything that is baffling you and our ears are wide open for suggestions.

Ok thats it for today, I can't give you anymore!  Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to either give you a peak at collection number 2 or let you know about some partnerships we have established, to give you even more creative power from the convenience of your craft space!

Hope you are half as excited about this as I am!!

And thanks to each and everyone of you, YOU are the Paperlife's inspiration!

Ok I gotta go get busy, so much to do before Friday!

Hugs,

Amy

Comments

[Keshet]

Good luck with the new venture, Amy! Very proud of you--I'm sure this took a lot of work and skill!

[Sheila]

I live in the midwest as well and have the same problem. You can buy some things on-line, but I do miss touching and feeling the paper before I buy it. I am interested on how this will work.

Will I be buying a download and then I will print on card stock?

Will it be like shopping online, I want this item and add to cart? Or will I be buying a membership kind of thing.

I think this is a great idea and Congrats on the exciting developments and GOOD LUCK! I can't wait to see more!

[Amy Coon]

Thank you so much Keshet!!

Sheila, it will be like shopping online in that, yes you will put the pdf (which means any computer can print it) file in your cart of whatever item you want. purchase it and then immediately the high resolution file is e-mailed to you to print on yes, cardstock. All papers will be 8.5x11 with this first release (12x12 will be in the future) if you don't want to print at home, I have also been sending them to kinkos and picking them up and they turn out great, this will be an option for the 12x12 when available as alot of people don't have large format printers. The nice thing is you just print what you want when you want it and the file is yours so if you need more just print more. As the week goes on you will see we have may more options than just the pdf's for people who are into photography and photoshop and even stamping hee hee!!! but, our backbone is the printables.

I suggest you just create a paperlife folder on your hard drive somewhere and when you purchase just save files to there and they will be available forever for you to print stuff from.

I know the 8.5x11 thing will be new for lots of people but, honestly that is my favorite size to create with, not so much "realestate" to fill up, but, you should see the amazing 12x12 layouts the papergirls have done on cardstock and using the printables as their accent papers and elements which will be revealed Friday.

Does that help? Again, I appreciate the questions, it helps us be what you need us to be!

[✿ Cheri]

Way to go AMY!!! So super Excited for you and your new venture!!